🔗 Share this article Can You Crack It? The Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Shaped our Modern World One can find numerous candidates to claim the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine. According to a recent publication, though, that honor belongs to a mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593. “Before automated sawing, building a simple trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers working for three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured within a week.” Owing to their speedy mechanical saw, that converted logs into planks with almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct ships faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch naval, economic and artistic supremacy across Europe and the world. The First True Manufacturing Device The inventor's sawmill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s first true industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part converted its rotary movement to up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. Another component transformed the rotary movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the log to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood forward one precise increment each stroke. “Each element seemed simple by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them so they acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each downward motion and moving with each return motion. It was a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.” A fact that leads us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine one of the basic concepts behind Corneliszoon’s invention. Circular to Vertical Design a mechanism which converts rotary motion to vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so the components don’t fall down.) I’ll be back later today UK time with the answer. In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.